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Minor Strangeness (IHTM)

rynner2 said:
It's not unusual to see crows hanging around roads, waiting for some fresh roadkill.
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Go figure. There was a large crow pecking away at something on the road next to my bus stop a couple of weeks ago. Totally oblivious to my presence.
I've seen our urban fox a few times, mostly just slinking around.
Once though it was washing itself on a bit of green nearby, it stopped and gave me a definite 'yeah, what are you going to do about it?' look.
It was right, my turn to slink off.
 
smokehead said:
Go figure. There was a large crow pecking away at something on the road next to my bus stop a couple of weeks ago. Totally oblivious to my presence.
I've seen our urban fox a few times, mostly just slinking around.
Once though it was washing itself on a bit of green nearby, it stopped and gave me a definite 'yeah, what are you going to do about it?' look.
It was right, my turn to slink off.
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I used to work at an old hospital (gone now) and it was out of town so had wildlife around it. One time I was walking from one part to another, being old it was lots of different buildings. So I was walking along a walkway with a fox in front of me. We happened to be going the same way. It kept turning around and giving me evils like I was deliberately following it.

As for pigeons, are they all suicidal? I had one fly at my car yesterday, we heard it on hit my roof. I've seen many close calls and a couple come a cropper.
 
Me (in museum, looking at a piece by Joep van Lieshout): "I have an almost irresistible urge to knock on this object to see if it's light or heavy, concrete or plastic foam."
Museum guard: "I have that same feeling. I wonder if it is heavy of if I could just lift it up with one hand."
Me: "But we can't do that can we?"
Guard: "Unfortunately we're not allowed to touch the artworks."

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uair01 said:
Me (in museum, looking at a piece by Joep van Lieshout): "I have an almost irresistible urge to knock on this object to see if it's light or heavy, concrete or plastic foam."
Museum guard: "I have that same feeling. I wonder if it is heavy of if I could just lift it up with one hand."
Me: "But we can't do that can we?"
Guard: "Unfortunately we're not allowed to touch the artworks."

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Looks like Cthulhu.
 
As a fisherman I haven't actually seen that much wildlife.
I saw an otter in the Severn once, and a quite frankly rubbish bat nearly knocked my hat off night fishing one time.
Mostly it's dogs. Fisherman use all sorts of additives and flavourings to enhance the baits attractiveness to the fish. Christmas to the average mutt.
As a dog lover I don't mind so much. Rather it's funny when the owner has to drag them away from their entranced snuffling in my groundbait bowl.
 
MorningAngel said:
... One time I was walking from one part to another, being old it was lots of different buildings. So I was walking along a walkway with a fox in front of me. We happened to be going the same way. It kept turning around and giving me evils like I was deliberately following it. ...
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Foxes seem to have a particular penchant for following artificial pathways ...

For several years I regularly rode my bicycle on a well-developed bikeway (paved; essentially a 1.5-lane country road-let) through farm / forest land. Over the years I encountered a wide range of local wildlife and domestic animals, including foxes. Different animals exhibited different responses to an oncoming human on a bike. Some froze in place; some dodged immediately to one or another side of the road; etc.

In my experience, foxes were unique in their determination to stay on the road / path. They would never immediately dodge across the road or back the way they came. Instead, they would take off running in my direction of travel. I've chased them for up to a quarter mile before I closed to within maybe 5 - 10 yards and they finally dodged off the pavement into the grass / underbrush (always to the same side on which I'd first seen them).

It was as if they couldn't conceive abandoning the pavement until I was on top of them. No other animal I encountered was so consistent in (a) its evasion behavior and (b) its insistence on following the road / path at all costs.
 
I was a damn nuisance to a grey heron early one morning on the canal.
It kept flying a couple of hundred yards or so then perched on the canal side presumably looking for its breakfast.
A few minutes later I got near it and so off it went again. This process was repeated several times until I got to my fishng spot.
Thinking about Enolagaia's post has made me wonder why it didn't just fly over the other side of the canal, it's open both sides.
I may have told this story before but not all dogs are harmless.
We were fishing Swan pool in Sandwell. A labrador, peacefully snuffling away at the waters edge suddenly turned, growled and attacked my fishing rod. In fact it bit the end off.
The owner was all 'sorry, sorry', my dad was going 'ey, what about his rod mate?'
I was doubled up, possibly going through a fortean phase where the ridiculous happening was expected, nay even welcomed.
 
Today, I've been a lot more active on the FTMB forum than usual (at home trying to recover from a heavy cold).

(This observation could, arguably, go into a new thread called 'Internet Conspiracies'. Or the Coincidences thread. But this is beyond coincidence).

I've been writing a lot in French, today. Which is unusual for me (see this FTMB link). But that has been exclusively-within our forum.

And later this evening, I happened to visit a Wikipedia page (I have often contributed in the past), which uniquely (for me) included a Message in my Talk/Contributions page (last one was 4 years ago).

It was a message, in English, from a French-speaking Wikipedian co-ordinator, inviting me to consider becoming a French language translator. Dated today.

So what happened? This cannot be a coincidence.

Somehow, this Fortean Times forum must've been skimmed by some form of internet autobot, programmed to look for high-hitcount English-language pages that include French words.

I'm open to any other possible explanations (and, if I'm honest, am hoping for similar experiences from other FT forum members).
 
There were rumours about 8 years ago that a pair of wolves had been released into the wild wood slopes of Highlands by eco-activists, but I've heard nothing since then. I'm fairly sure of the year (2009) it was the year after a family bereavement.

If there had been truth in it, we'd know all about it. Although....there are parts of Scotland that can feel as deserted of people as Arctic Canada (of that I'm certain). So a small isolated pack, with unlimited rabbits, would have no real need to travel far. Especially if the ecologies were all worked-out, and the location was really well-picked. Perhaps...
 
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Putting this in minor strangeness rather than coincidences, because I think this might be a case of retro-psi. Of course no one can say for sure, but judge for yourself...

The other day, I was walking along when I thought I saw a tarantula in my peripheral vision. It appeared to be a large black one rather than the smaller blueish ones more commonly seen around here. (Mind you, both kinds are way too big for my comfort!)

When I checked, though, there was no tarantula, only a somewhat tarantula-shaped shadow near the marigolds.

I shuddered with relief, then walked into the house...where I immediately saw a huge black (arrrgh!) tarantula crawling up my bedroom wall. :eek:

I've never in my whole life seen one of these get indoors and I hadn't seen any of them at all for some time. It was a shock to say the least. A little too weird that I'd thought I'd seen one just before I actually did. Not so much predicting the future, as I didn't know what was going to happen, but perhaps the shock had filtered back just a few minutes into the past?

You would have been impressed by my bravery, BTW, running about trying to get it into various containers and realizing each was too small (where's the fainting emoticon?) before I finally lost my nerve and called my sons to come catch it. :p
 
There appears to be at least a Texas Brown Tarantula, and if that wasn't bad enough, there's a Giant Texas Tarantula.

I had no idea the Lone Star State had eight-legged fiends like this. You have my respect (additionally, and aracnologically).

The precognition/psi warning is classic hominid survival...all of us are alive, today, due to our forebearers having treated every shadow in the shower as a knife, not a nightingale. Say somehow you could've heard that spider...not consciously, just a tiny patter of feet. Perhaps we can all hear large spiders, without being aware, at some ultrasonic instinctual level (elsewise, we might arguably all be tribally-dead...we could call it spider-sense, though there may be copyright angles). Or a hint of spider-scent was detected by your acute vomernasal sensitivity....

Then you see the shadow, interpret it as spider, thus giving you time to duck'n'roll, pull your Smith&Wesson six-gun from your garter and shoot the actual tarantula clean off'f your teapot. (Well, that's just one of the many possible survival routines available to you- but stay safe!)
 
Ermintruder said:
There appears to be at least a Texas Brown Tarantula, and if that wasn't bad enough, there's a Giant Texas Tarantula.

I had no idea the Lone Star State had eight-legged fiends like this. You have my respect (additionally, and aracnologically).

The precognition/psi warning is classic hominid survival...all of us are alive, today, due to our forebearers having treated every shadow in the shower as a knife, not a nightingale. Say somehow you could've heard that spider...not consciously, just a tiny patter of feet. Perhaps we can all hear large spiders, without being aware, at some ultrasonic instinctual level (elsewise, we might arguably all be tribally-dead...we could call it spider-sense, though there may be copyright angles). Or a hint of spider-scent was detected by your acute vomernasal sensitivity....

Then you see the shadow, interpret it as spider, thus giving you time to duck'n'roll, pull your Smith&Wesson six-gun from your garter and shoot the actual tarantula clean off'f your teapot. (Well, that's just one of the many possible survival routines available to you- but stay safe!)
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Interesting theory. Might very well be true. Perhaps my chronic anxiety is just a subliminal awareness of all the horrible creeping beasties in this place. :eek:

Not sure what type of tarantula it was, it looked mostly black, though its abdomen was somewhat brownish. I did take a picture of it, though it's not very clear - I wasn't in the mood to make sure the flash was on. ;)
(spoiler tagged for the arachnophobic)
tarantula.jpg

The Texas brown tarantula I think is what I described as "blue-ish" upthread. A bit like that infamous dress, it looks blue striped to me rather than brown.

There may be other variations around, but don't know as I've reached the maximum amount of tarantula research I'm willing to do, ever. o_O
 
Ulalume said:
Interesting theory. Might very well be true. Perhaps my chronic anxiety is just a subliminal awareness of all the horrible creeping beasties in this place. :eek:

Not sure what type of tarantula it was, it looked mostly black, though its abdomen was somewhat brownish. I did take a picture of it, though it's not very clear - I wasn't in the mood to make sure the flash was on. ;)
(spoiler tagged for the arachnophobic)
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The Texas brown tarantula I think is what I described as "blue-ish" upthread. A bit like that infamous dress, it looks blue striped to me rather than brown.

There may be other variations around, but don't know as I've reached the maximum amount of tarantula research I'm willing to do, ever. o_O
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JEZUS H CHRIST IN A BUCKET, I LOOKED, WHAT A TWAT sorry, it was horrific, that bugger would have taken a slipper off of you and bashed ya back, i hope i never ever live to see one that big over here, i cant believe i looked at it, heart palpatations, christ
 
talking of foxes..
for many years, my dad used to leave food out in his back garden to feed the local fox population, he would leave out left overs from meals with left over dog food, bits of stale bread etc etc
although none of the foxes were ever truly tame (they were completely wild) they would on occasion approach him and take food from his hand.
One night when me and my dad were out walking our dogs, we were about half a mile from home walking past an industrial unit, which was surrounded by a steel railing type fence approx 8feet high. on the other side of this fence a fox appeared. well this fox followed us and the 3 dogs at no more than 4 foot away from us (presumably "he" knew that our dogs couldn't reach "him") all the way around the perimiter of the factory, completely unafraid.
I was and still am convinced that this fox recognised my dad and his dogs scent and knew that he was friendly. it really was one of those surreal moments that we rarely get to witness.
 
another fox story for you...
my dad whilst out with his dogs found a complete ducks body minus its head - presumably killed by a fox and left when disturbed?
well my dad - being the kind of person he was, decided that this should not go to waste when there are hungry foxes at home who would enjoy this free meal, so took it home.
that night he left the duck out as normal and in the morning it had gone. Job done.
a couple of days later i was talking to my mate who lived on the estate behind my dads house, when he just came out with "you'll never guess what my dad found in the back garden the other morning.... a headless duck!"
apparently his dad was stood there in his garden looking around for where the hell this duck had come from? and could not understand how it had lost its head whilst flying over his house!!
what are the odds that the same fox would go from my dads house with its bounty and end up dropping it in my mates garden probably 15 houses away???
 
My boss told me a story about geese.
His dad, let's call him Bill, had a small farm and every year fattened up a couple of geese for Christmas, one for his family and one for his sister.
To all intents and purposes they were identical.
His sister paid a visit and whilst they were talking one of them flew off and disappeared into the distance.
Quick as a flash she said "look Bill! YOUR goose has flown off!"
Kudos.
 
smokehead that reminds me of when I was a child and our family with staying with my aunt's family in the country for Christmas.
One of the neighbours owed her husband some money and said he would give them a chicken for Christmas lunch as payment.
Came Christmas morning and he arrived with a live very ancient chook and my aunt was not amused.
 
It was cold today and about 3 o'clock when I was driving to my friend's house I saw a middle aged couple walking along. They weren't near any houses as they were in front of this power station complex but they were carrying a large ginger cat.
I couldn't work out why you would take a cat out on a very cool day as they weren't very close to anywhere they might live and the complex was taking about a block. I hadn't thought a cat would enjoy being carried on a walk but it wasn't struggling.
 
It's possible I suppose, they seemed quite relaxed, talking and laughing.
Most cats I know though don't like being picked up by people they don't know unless they are at home on safe ground.
 
I've read the actor Daniel Sterns' scream in Home Alone was genuine, apparently he was under the impression they were going to put a fake tarantula on his face.
If true I can relate. I operate a strict detente with the things, as long as they leave me alone I will do likewise.
Galloping towards me with obviously evil intent will involve a rolled up newspaper however.
My mate had a tarantula, he's on YouTube with his 10 (I think) year old daughter handling it.
He'd got rid of it by the time I went round his house but nonetheless........
 
Iris said:
It's possible I suppose, they seemed quite relaxed, talking and laughing.
Most cats I know though don't like being picked up by people they don't know unless they are at home on safe ground.
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Maybe it was there cat that had gone walkies and they'd gone to find it.

Edit - *their (doh)
 
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